


A Drink at the Savoy

by ljs



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Indiana Jones Series
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-13 03:33:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3366173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ljs/pseuds/ljs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For my friend Paratti's birthday request.</p>
<p>Post-<i>Kingdom of the Crystal Skull</i>.</p>
<p>So Marion Ravenwood Williams jones walks into the American Bar at the Savoy, and finds a seat next to a woman named River....</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Drink at the Savoy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Paratti](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paratti/gifts).



Marion Ravenwood Williams Jones stormed into the American Bar at the Savoy with a swing to her stride and vengeance in her heart. She needed a Scotch in the worst way.

A few steps in, however, she cast her gaze over the available seating. She didn’t want to have to deal with more male stupidity – Jones having exceeded her admittedly small quota of patience today – and a woman alone could still elicit annoying attention. She wanted to save her fury for her beloved husband.

Luckily, a seat at the bar was open – next to a woman with a head of barely tamed curls, a body wrapped in a houndstooth jacket Marion had eyed at Selfridge’s the other day, and a half-empty glass of Scotch in front of her. Clearly this woman had good taste. Marion headed for refuge.

“Scotch. Make it a double,” she said to the bartender as she slid into the chair.

The woman next to her smiled at the order, swirled her own drink, sipped. Then she said, in a English voice neither too familiar nor too cool, “If you don’t mind my saying so, that’s a great lipstick. Love a red lip, me.”

“Thanks. Love your jacket,” Marion said.

The woman nodded. “It moves well. A girl can throw a punch in it.”

“I’ll get my own tomorrow, then,” Marion said, smiling, and with that, they were friends.

They exchanged first names: the woman was called River. Marion said she was in England with her archeologist husband, Dr Henry Jones Jr, consulting on a dig related to the Sutton Hoo sites. River said that her husband – she just called him ‘The Doctor,’ which Marion found kind of charming – was dealing with a problem in the East End, but “he won’t let me properly help.”

Marion’s drink arrived at that point. She tossed back half the drink, then remembered that she wasn’t in Nepal any longer and didn’t have to slam it down. “This is what Indy’s reduced me to. That was goddamn _decades_ ago,” she muttered to herself, before turning to River. “Mine won’t let me help either. I’m sure that there’s another burial site nearby, I tried to tell him, but he’s just focused on this one artifact from the main cemetery. And yeah, there’s something odd about it, but –"

“But he doesn’t listen to your wisdom,” River finished. “How well I know that feeling. With mine, well, he’s just careening around everywhere without a thought in his pretty head, walking into danger, flying with the damn brakes on because he likes the noise.”

Even though Marion was a little confused about that last one, she recognized sisterhood when she heard it. “So you escape to the nearest bar.”

“Until I get enough strength to deal with him, yes,” River said, “if I don’t run away altogether first,” and they toasted each other on that truth.

They each ordered another Scotch. Afterward Marion never quite remembered what they talked about for the next half-hour – something about shoes and dirt-encrusted oddities, maps and stars and beauty products and guns, the best drinks for a cold night in a strange place – but she remembered that sense of connection. She hadn’t realized how badly she had needed another woman to talk to, one who understood the difficulties of being one’s own person when married to an extraordinary man.

All too soon, however, there came a clatter and commotion outside the bar; an exuberant male babble, seemingly explaining something to a random person in authority. “That’s mine,” River sighed, and put money on the bar.

“He sounds… young,” Marion said.

“He does. But the years and the mileage say otherwise,” River said. Then, leaning forward, she said quietly, “A word of advice for you, Marion. If you stick to your theory about that site adjacent to Sutton Hoo, well… the name of Marion Ravenwood Jones will be remembered in archeological circles for a long, long time.”

“And how do you know that?” said Marion.

River’s smile was amused and mysterious. “Spoilers.”

Then that exuberant male voice called, “River!” Marion caught a glimpse of tweed and floppy hair and flailing limbs, but then he disappeared.

“Coming, sweetie!” River said loudly. With a final wink for Marion, she headed off and was out of sight sooner than Marion would have expected.

She felt a little lonely, leaning on the bar by herself. When she took another drink, instead of warmth and smoke she felt a chill along her spine, as if a door to another time had opened to let in the deepest cold. She remembered Nepal, and shadows and fire, and put down her glass.

Then a warm hand fitted itself to the nape of her neck. She looked up to see Indy, tidy for town in his tweed and his bowtie, smiling at her in the mirror over the bar. “Hi, honey.”

“Hi yourself,” she said cautiously.

Still holding on to her, he slid onto the seat River had left. “I’ll have what she’s having,” he said to the hovering bartender. Then, when they were alone, he said, “You still mad?”

She put her hand on his thigh. “Maybe. You going to listen to me?”

His expression was self-deprecating, a little tired. “Yeah. Yeah, I am.” He covered her hand with his own. “’Cause you’ll make my life hell if I don’t.”

She thought of River’s words about escape. “No. I might just leave, though, until—"

“Don’t say that.” His double-grip on her tightened. “See, you just described hell.”

“Bull,” she said, despite the pleasure his words gave her. “You managed most of your adult life without me, Jones.”

“That’s how I know what I’m talking about.”

“Indy.” She leaned forward and touched her lips to his. Then, a breath away, “That's sweet, but it’s still bull. As long as you listen to my ideas, though, I’ll let it slide.”

“God you’re hard work,” he murmured, then kissed her properly, deep and soft, and the last bit of cold went away.

When they broke apart, the bartender was there with Indy’s Scotch. In a perfect English deadpan: “Should I just have this delivered to your room, sir?”

“Thanks. Room 512,” Jones said, and pulled Marion to her feet.

From outside the bar came a clatter and commotion again, and a faraway yelped “River!” and the slam of a door. Then came the oddest sound, a wheeze-groan like… brakes?

But Jones was striding through the American Bar like he was headed for trouble, and his hand was hard on hers, and she felt the universe somehow right itself.

Sometimes all a woman needed was another woman who understood.

Thanks, River, Marion thought, and then, as she had done for so long, rode Indy’s wake to exactly where she wanted to be.


End file.
